The foregoing facts show that private enterprise was ready throughout the period beginning with 1838 to incur considerable risks in establishing the new industry of telegraphy, and in giving to the public facilities for the use of that industry. Private enterprise did not at any time adopt the policy of exploiting the public by confining itself to operations involving little or no risk, while paying well. It is true that once a company had reached the position of paying 5, 6, 7, 8, or more, per cent., it tried to maintain that position, and refrained from making extensions at such a rate as to cause a decrease in the dividend. But that fact does not warrant the charge that the companies neglected their duty to the public. Until the threat of purchase by the State arrested extensions, and the dividends rose unusually rapidly, the earnings of the companies were moderate; and finally, though the companies tried to maintain whatever rate of dividend had once been attained, the investing public never believed that even the Electric and International would maintain indefinitely the 10 per cent. rate. That is shown by the fact that until the public began to speculate on the strength of the prospect of the State paying a big price for the property of the Electric and International, the stock of that company never sold for more than 14 years' purchase.[21] Had the public believed that the 10 per cent. dividend would be maintained indefinitely, the stock would have risen to 25 years' purchase, the price of the best railway shares. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Mr. Scudamore's Statistics_] In order to show that the people of the United Kingdom suffered from a lack of telegraphic facilities, when compared with the people of Belgium and Switzerland, Mr. Scudamore stated in his reports of 1865 and 1866, that there were: in Belgium, 17.75 miles of telegraph line to every 100 square miles; in Switzerland, 13.7; and in the United Kingdom, 11.3. He stated, also, that there were in Belgium 6.33 telegraph offices to every 100,000 people; in Switzerland, 9.9; and in the United Kingdom, 5.6. Mr. Scudamore obtained the figures with regard to the United Kingdom from the Board of Trade returns.[22] For 1865 to 1867, those returns were very incomplete; but in 1868 they became very full. Mr. Scudamore's reports of 1865 and 1868 were not ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, until April, 1868, when the completed Board of Trade returns were available. But neither in the reports as laid before Parliament, nor in the testimony given before the Select Committee of Parliament in 1868, did Mr. Scudamore draw attention to the fact that the statement that the United Kingdom had only 11.3 miles of telegraph line to every 100 square miles of area, and 5.6 telegraph offices to every 100,000 people, was based on incomplete returns.